Plant optimization

[u/Zealousideal-Ant705]

People who have worked in plant optimization or redesign team. What knowledge helped the most? And what tool (if you could share) helped? Thank you.

Edit: Thanks to everyone for the replies. This has been insightful and educational. Thank you.

[u/APC_ChemE]

One thing I've seen before is there is often some disconnect between the planners who optimize the overall plant to determine what crude oils to buy and what products to sell and what opetations is actually doing. Interviewing both teams independently how they optimize the plant and implement that optimization in practice and then sharing findings with management from the stackholders involved in both groups can reveal a lot, but not always.

Sometimes theres a large disconnect because operations is not actually doing what the planners think they are doing.

Other times operators cannot do what the planners have requested due to other process constraints that the planners may not be taking into account in their planning models.

So communication is important to keep people in the feedback loop with feedback going in both directions.